Once upon a time in grade school, I was told that this was a good example of an oxymoron. Jumbo and shrimp contradict each other right? Well, sort of. Shrimp refers to a fish, not a size. Is it still an oxymoron if the word has two meanings and the meaning used in the oxymoronic phrase is not contradictory of the other word in the phrase?

Yes, I believe so. In any case it is better than the other commonly used oxymoron, ie "military intelligence". That's not an oxymoron, and is a very poor example, (It is kinda funny, tho, but only the 1st time you hear it).

“Oxymoron”, strictly speaking, refers to a device in which two contradictory terms are deliberately put together for rhetorical effect. For example, “belatedly premature”, “slightly in love”, “imperial democracy”. By this standard, “jumbo shrimp” is not an oxymoron.

I don’t imagine that anybody hearing the phrase “jumbo shrimp” thinks that it means “a large small thing” rather than a large example of the sea creature, so I don’t see how there’s any incongruity at all. I suppose that “giant midget” would be an oxymoron, but I can’t imagine when you’d use it.

The term oxymoron does not mean a contradiction in terms; rather, it means an apparent contradiction in terms. Whether or not it is an actual nonsensical pair of words is not predetermined. The first example I had heard was weeping optimists. If they're optimists, how can they be sad? Well, optimists look on the bright side of the future; maybe they're sad about the past. Or maybe they just got something in their eyes.

How about victorious defeat? Like, when you sue the school district for the right to dress like a nun, and you lose the case, but in doing so you tremendously raise the consciousness of the plight of nun-impersonators in our nation's schools.

Anyway, the point is, saying somebody made an oxymoron isn't really a criticism; it's only a criticism if they did it accidentally or if, upon further refection, it really doesn't make sense.

Maybe this was local, but at my elementary school in Calgary around 1993 or so, ``shrimp'' almost always refered to a person of small stature. In that case, ``jumbo shrimp'' would be an oxymoron. That's how I always thought of it.

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``You're just an empty cage girl if you kill the bird.'' -- Tori Amos.

...I suppose that “giant midget” would be an oxymoron, but I can’t imagine when you’d use it.

Minsc would argue (most violently) with your assertion, citing his beloved Boo the miniature giant space hamster as a counter-argument. But I guess you could argue that SANE people wouldn't use "miniature giant" or "giant midget". Or non-fictional people.

I knew an Australian to whom the phrase was indeed an oxymoron since their word for shrimp is prawn. Until she discovered, living for a year in the US (New Orleans, no less) that "shrimp" meant "prawn".

I knew an Australian to whom the phrase was indeed an oxymoron since their word for shrimp is prawn. Until she discovered, living for a year in the US (New Orleans, no less) that "shrimp" meant "prawn".

I'm actually a little surprised that an Australian wouldn't know the seafood meaning of shrimp. I understand that "prawn" is mostly used, but don't they refer to small prawns as "shrimp"? This Australian website seems to think so.

Minsc would argue (most violently) with your assertion, citing his beloved Boo the miniature giant space hamster as a counter-argument. But I guess you could argue that SANE people wouldn't use "miniature giant" or "giant midget". Or non-fictional people.

I believe that in Baldur's Gate you can get a conversation with Elminster who says something along the lines of how Boo is in fact a Giant Space Hamster... who had a shrinking spell cast on him. In that way "miniature giant" makes sense, because fundamentally it is the species "Giant Space Hamster", but was altered to be miniaturized. One would presume that "giant space hamsters" have defining species characteristics apart from merely being larger than normal hamsters from space that Boo would have inherited.

(Though, regardless of any justification given in or out of universe, the name was clearly intended to make people laugh because of the apparent contradiction in terms).

Although a true oxymoron is "something that is surprisingly true, a paradox," Garry Wills has argued that modern usage has brought a common misunderstanding[4] that oxymoron is nearly synonymous with contradiction. The introduction of this misuse, the opposite of its true meaning, has been credited to William F. Buckley.[5]

Sometimes a pair of terms is claimed to be an oxymoron by those who hold the opinion that the two are mutually exclusive. That is, although there is no inherent contradiction between the terms, the speaker expresses the opinion that the two terms imply properties or characteristics that cannot occur together.

And this misuse would never have happened if the term itself--being a rhetorical term from poetics--didn't sound esoteric.

In other words, the people who perpetuate these tired lists think they sound smart by using the "big" word; they probably wouldn't be feeling so clever and amusing by sending chain emails with the typical George Carlin inspired list if they couldn't also use the word oxymoron in the process--however incorrectly they use it.

I'm actually a little surprised that an Australian wouldn't know the seafood meaning of shrimp. I understand that "prawn" is mostly used, but don't they refer to small prawns as "shrimp"? This Australian website seems to think so.

"Jumbo shrimp" is an oxymoron that is in common use and was before Carlin. He may have brought it to our attention that it was contradictory.)

But it's not contradictory in the slightest. "Large shellfish" is not a oxymoron, so "jumbo shrimp" -- which means exactly the same thing.

Yes, "shrimp" can mean "a small person," but "jumbo shrimp" always applies to the crustacean and nothing else.

Carlin (or whoever originally said it) was making a pun (or, I suppose, a malapropism) on the two definitions, but the example was meant as a joke and is still a joke -- i.e., not something to be taken seriously as a definition.

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"East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does."Purveyor of fine science fiction since 1982.

Wal, podnuh, y'all write Amurrican right well fer a furriner, 'ceptin' fer your tendenc to put an excess U in color, honor, humor, throw excess letters on the ends of program, catalog, etc., misspell and mispronounce the metallic component of bauxite, etc. Or was that comment supposed to be an example of that other oxymoron, "British wit"?

Reality Chuck:...But it's not contradictory in the slightest. "Large shellfish" is not a oxymoron, so "jumbo shrimp" -- which means exactly the same thing.

But we're not saying that "jumbo shellfish" is an oxymoron. And yes, prawn and shrimp mean the same thing in one context. But in at least the US, "shrimp" also means "small." "Prawn" doesn't mean "small" that I am aware of. Jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron -- a contradiction in terms. "Prawn" and "shrimp" are two different words that sometimes mean the same thing. And shellfish is more comprehensive.

Most of the lists that I have reviewed on the internet are a mixture of a few oxymorons, seldom heard oxymorons, and non-oxymorons. But the oxymoron that I like best is common -- at least in the Southern United States: pretty ugly. We use "pretty" instead of the words "very" or "really" which is a common usage. But when it is combined with a word meaning the opposite of one of the meanings of pretty, it becomes an oxymoron.

Why would "bittersour" be more of an oxymoron than "bittersweet." If anything, they seem to be more related, as a lot of people confuse "bitter" tastes with "sour" tastes.

I don't know why they're often confused, but "sour" is the taste of acids, and "bitter" is the taste of bases. A food of any pH can contain sugar or salt, but a food cannot be simultaneously basic and acidic.

I don't know why they're often confused, but "sour" is the taste of acids, and "bitter" is the taste of bases. A food of any pH can contain sugar or salt, but a food cannot be simultaneously basic and acidic.

Are you sure "bitter" is only related to pH? I've certainly had foods and drinks that were bitter and sour at the same time. Like chew some grapefruit with a bit of pith. You get sour and bitter, but I suppose you can chalk that up to two separate substances. Mix some wormwood with orange juice, and you get sweet, sour, and bitter all together, too.

Research has shown that TAS2Rs (taste receptors, type 2, also known as T2Rs) such as TAS2R38 are responsible for the human ability to taste bitter substances.[62] They are identified not only by their ability to taste certain bitter ligands, but also by the morphology of the receptor itself (surface bound, monomeric).[63]

The fact that there are supertasters who taste bitterness in certain compounds others don't suggests to me that it isn't primarily about the pH of a substance.

Or how about coffee? Coffee is acidic, but its flavor isn't usually described as sour, but bitter (and I would agree that it is bitter as opposed to sour.)